Lotus Testing Faster Exige S at Nurburgring Amid Financial Problems

Unfortunately, that amazing roster of concepts that was originally supposed to come out last year isn’t really coming and the company is stuck with a somewhat bad reputation and financial problems.

But the Brits are never ones to give up easily and Lotus is now back at work, doing what it does best: re-engineering the stuffing out of an old car. During he Industry Pool at the Nurburgring, Lotus was recently spotted testing two Exige S prototypes. They don’t look very different to the ones already on offer, which leads us to believe that these are 2015 or 2016 model year cars with slightly more power or some sort of half-aggressive, half-soft special edition to battle the recently launched Cayman GTS.

The Exige first entered production in 2000 as what was essentially only a two-door coupe version of the Elise. In 2012, a major update came about with the arrival of the Series 3 model, which also meant the supercharged 3.5-liter V6 from the Evora S was being made available. To accommodate the 350 PS engine, the new model is 25cm longer and 5cm wider than before, not to mention a whole lot sexier. Still, despite what many consider the best chassis on the road, it still fails to match sales numbers comparable to its Porsche rivals.

Lotus recently announced its cutting 325 jobs or a quarter of its entire workforce due to financial shortages. The recently appointed CEO Jean-MarcGales has spoken to British magazine Autocar and said they are considering a sedan once again.

"You will see many new variants of familiar Lotus models over the next nine months, and even more in the next two years,” said the CEO, somewhat confirming that the prototype in this video is a faster version of the Exige S.